Hi there. I just bought my first house (yay, I think!), and want to put an in-law apartment in the basement for my mom. The space is semi-finished - there's a mostly-finished rumpus room, and an enclosed patio area that was created when an addition was put on the floor above it. We want to combine these spaces to make a 1/1 apartment with a living room and kitchenette. There won't be much tearing-down-of-walls to do, but we will need to add some walls to create the bedroom, bathroom, and living areas, and add some new windows.

My question (the first of many here, probably) is: do we need an architect, or if we have a competent contractor, will that suffice? I've been given strong opinions for both options from friends. We'd like to keep costs down as much as possible, of course, but will tighten up the budget in other areas to put money towards an architect if we need to.

thanks!
aimee